HSC English First Paper - Unit Two - Traffic Education
Unit Two: Traffic Education
I'm sitting in the back of a CNG, a three-wheeled
motorcycle shaped like a slice of pie and covered with scrap metal. I'm here
working on a human rights project, but whenever I ask people in Dhaka what they
think international organizations should really be working on, they tell me
about the traffic.
Amidst killer speeds I stand
Lesson 1: How Your Brain
Negotiates Traffic
1. Warm up activity:
Discuss in a small group the following questions.
□ What do you mean by traffic?
□ Who controls die traffic?
□ What are die challenges of traffic control?
2. Do you ride a bicycle? If yes, how do you
negotiate the traffic? Speak in a group. If you don't know how to ride a
bicycle, ask a friend who does.
3. Read the passage below and complete the
activities mentioned at the end of the passage.
When you are in the driving seat of a car, you have
the steering and the horn in your hands, the brake and accelerator under your
feet, eyes open looking ahead, left and right. The same can be said about a
motorcycle rider, with some modifications. These are all very visible. But,
behind all, there is something that keeps working unseen. And that is the
Central Processing Unit (CPU), your brain. CPUs are artificially intelligent
machines that are programmed to do specific jobs under fixed conditions and
judgements. But the human brain is intelligent by nature. It is the most
sophisticated machine that is able to operate on 15
ever-changing conditions and standards of judgement
As conditions in the traffic keep invariably changing, this virtue of
sophistication of your brain must be at work when you are driving. The
difference between traffic in the roads and highways and racing circuit must
not be blurring inside you. Never imagine yourself to be a Michael Schumacher
driving an F-l at 300 mph. Leave no room 20
for fantasy. You must always be ready to encounter
unexpected behavior from any vehicle or pedestrian. 'Keep your cool' is easy to
advice but difficult to maintain. Still you must always restrain yourself
because, at the end of the day, you don't want to be regarded as a killer. Now
you see, the last thing that differentiates you from a computer is your
conscience. 25
4. Read the following questions. Each question has
a word in italics with four alternative meanings. Choose the word which is the
closest in meaning:
A. What is a steering used for?
i. speeding
ii. stopping
iii. changing speed
iv. directing
B. What is the function of the accelerator?
i. charging battery
ii. enhancing speed
iii. stopping
iv. controlling
C. Which organ is the word visible associated with?
i. ear
ii. nose
iii. eyes
iv. hands
D. The word sophisticated in line 15 means-
i. complex
ii. primitive
iii. modern
iv. refined
E. Michael Schumacher is a-
i. Hollywood hero.
ii. German racing driver.
iii. English footballer.
iv. Australian cricketer.
5. Answer the following questions:
a. Where do you see the difference between other
human organs and the brain?
b. What is the difference between a computer and
the human brain?
c. What is a CPU? What are its functions?
d. What are the main challenges facing a driver?
e. What is a racing circuit?
f. How is a racing circuit different from a public
road?
6. Do you think the bus and truck drivers of our
highways maintain traffic discipline? What are the reasons of road accidents in
our country? Write your answer within 500 words.
7. Make sentences with the following words and
phrases:
a. sophisticated
b. invariably
c. fantasy
d. pedestrian
e. convince
f. driving seat
g. unseen
8. Do you think our towns and cities are pedestrian
friendly? If your answer is "no", how can you make them so?
Lesson 2: Traffic Capital of
the World
1. Warm up activity:
In a small group ask each other these questions and
write down your answers.
□ What do you think of traffic jams in our cities?
□ What are the reasons for the traffic jams?
□ How would a foreigner feel about our traffic
system?
2. Now read this article written by Michael Hobbes
titled "Welcome to the Traffic Capital of the World"
I am in a tiny steel cage attached to a motorcycle,
stuttering through traffic in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In the last ten minutes, we
have moved forward maybe three feet, inch by inch, the driver wrenching the
wheel left and right, wriggling deeper into the wedge between a delivery truck
and a rickshaw in front of us.
Up ahead, the traffic is jammed so close together
that pedestrians are climbing over pickup trucks and through empty rickshaws to
cross the street Two rows to my left is an ambulance, blue light spinning
uselessly. This is what the streets here look like from seven o'clock in the
morning until ten o'clock at night If you're rich, you experience it from the
back seat of a car. If you're poor, you're in a rickshaw, breathing in the
exhaust.
Alleviating traffic congestion is one of the major
development challenges of our time. Half the world's population already lives
in cities, and the United Nations (UN) estimates that
the proportion will rise to nearly 70 percent by
2050. Dhaka, the world's densest and fastest growing city, is a case study in
how this problem got so bad and why it's so difficult to solve.
Dhaka's infrastructure doesn't match the scale of
its population. Just 7 percent of the city is covered by roads, compared with
around 25 percent of Paris and Vienna. Dhaka also suffers from the absence of a
planned road network. There are 650 major intersections, but only 60 traffic
lights, many of which don't work. That means the police force isn't enforcing
driving or parking rules; they're in the intersections, directing traffic.
The cost of Dhaka's traffic congestion is estimated
at $3.8 billion a year, and that's just the delays and air pollution, not the
less-tangible losses in quality of life. Paradoxically, the poor infrastructure
is one of the reasons why the city is growing so fast. Without roads or trains to
whisk them to the suburbs, Dhaka residents have no choice but to crowd into the
middle, set up slums between high-rises, and walk to work.
Then there are the users of the roads. Besides
pedestrians, the narrow lanes are shared by bicycles, rickshaws, scooters,
motorcycles, CNGs, buses, and cars. All these modes take up a different amount
of space and have different top speeds. Most people you talk to in Bangladesh
blame the traffic jams on the rickshaws. There are too many of them, they say,
and they drive so slowly that they trap the cars, buses, and CNGs behind them.
The government is under pressure to designate some lanes as car-only, to build
wider roads and overpasses, to take the slow traffic out from in front of the
fast.
And this brings us to the third reason why the
traffic problem is so difficult to solve. All of these fixes sound easy and
obvious, but they come at a cost. One and a half million people drive rickshaws
for a living, plus another few hundred thousand own and repair them. Government
efforts to get people out of rickshaws and into buses and trains are going to
attract huge opposition.
Even increasing bus capacity is more complicated
than it sounds. A 2009 World Bank analysis found 60 separate bus companies in
Dhaka. Since the bus companies compete with one another, the drivers have every
incentive to drive aggressively and take more passengers than the buses can
hold. What's more, the public transport isn't all that public. Many of the bus
companies are owned or linked to political parties or powerful trade unions.
Government efforts to unify or regularize the system would amount to a hostile
takeover of all of these small companies.
The obvious solution is to separate the rickshaws
from the cars, from the CNGs, give each of them lanes and lights according to
their top speed, and, crucially, make car drivers pay the cost of taking up
more space on the roads. But that, politically speaking, is unrealistic. Car
owners are a small part of the population, but they are the most influential.
Every year, Dhaka adds an extra 37,000 cars to its already overcrowded roads.
Think about all this from a Bangladeshi
politician's point of view. Any attempt to solve the traffic mess means
annoying the poor, the middle class, and the rich all at once.
Thanks to the donors, In 2012, the government
announced a $2.75 billion plan to build a metro rail system and a $45 million
bus rapid-transit line from the airport. For residents of Dhaka, it will come
as a relief.
Whenever I asked my Bangladeshi colleagues how long
it would take to get somewhere, they always gave two answers: "Without
traffic, maybe fifteen minutes. But with traffic? Who knows?"
[Adapted from the article published in
www.newstatesman.org]
3. Write 'T' if the statement is true, 'F' if the
statement is false.
____a. The annual cost of traffic congestion is 3.8
billion taka including less tangible costs such as quality of life.
____b. Only 10 percent of Dhaka is covered by
roads.
____c. Each year 37,000 cars are being added to the
streets of Dhaka.
____d. The author compares CNG to a piece of pie.
____e. According to the author, the public buses
are truly public.
4. Answer the following questions:
a. Why does the author think Dhaka's traffic
congestion is difficult to solve?
b. What are the arguments given for banning
rickshaws?
c. Why is it difficult to solve the traffic problem
in Dhaka from a politician's perspective?
d. What do you think of the style of the author?
5. Match the words in Column A with their meanings
in Column B in the box below:
Column
A
|
Column
B
|
i. stuttering
|
a. shaking
|
ii. wrenching
|
b.
tire out
|
iii. exhaust
|
c. road
and rail network
|
iv. wriggling
|
d. faltering
|
v. suburbs
|
e. twisting
suddenly and violently
|
vi. wedge
|
f. in
contradiction
|
vii. pedestrians
|
g. a
residential urban area outside the city
|
viii. whisk
|
h. force
into a narrow space
|
ix. paradoxically
|
i. to
move suddenly and quickly
|
x.
infrastructure
|
j. people
who are walking rather than travelling
|
in
a vehicle
|
6. Suppose you are stuck in a traffic jam in a car,
bus or rickshaw. Think of various things that you can do while you are stuck.
Consider the following activities:
Sleeping; Counting vehicles on all sides; Sending
text messages from your mobile phone; Listen to the radio or music; Play games;
Chat to the people sitting next to you or outside your vehicle; Play cards;
Shout out to the people going by; Read newspaper etc.
Now rank these activities and share your rankings
with your partner. Put the best at the top. Change partners and share your
rankings again.
7. "Paradoxically, the poor infrastructure is
one of the reasons why the city is growing so fast." Do you agree? Form
two groups to debate this proposition.
8. Write a short essay on "Solving Traffic
Jams" (500 words)
Lesson 3: The Traffic Police
1. Warm up activity;
□ Discuss in a small group what traffic management
means. Then write down how yon think traffic management can be improved in our
cities.
2. Now read the poem given below and answer the
questions that follow:
Facing the traffic, stretching my hand.
I am seen on kids books and as cartoons
everywhere
Educating people and asking them to beware
Of the static traffic and the signboards
Seen on almost all the roads.
So that you're safe I see each one of you
But my sweat, my plight cm the road sees who?
Be it sunny or rainy.
For your safety I must be
Vigil and agile, on the middle
Standing erect, as fit as a fiddle.
Oh! My ear hurts! Oh! My head aches!
Oh! Look at the weather...such unpredictable days!
But I cannot swerve; I must be on duty.
I care for your safety.
Be it noisy or dusty; Be it sunny or rainy;
I must be on duty. I care for your safety.
3. Answer the following questions:
a. Who is the speaker in the poem?
b. What do the words 'killer speeds' mean?
c. What is your view of a traffic policeman?
d. Why do his ears hurt?
e. What is 'unpredictable'?
f. What is the attitude of the speaker to the job he does?
4. The poem has three stanzas. What is the rhyme scheme of the stanzas? What are the advantages of using rhyme in a poem?
5. Attempt a 8 or 10 line poem about a policeman standing at a busy intersection in a city or a paragraph or two in prose.
6. Make sentences using the following words:
a. erratic
b. plight
c. agile
d. safety
e. dusty
7. Write down the adjectival form of the following words:
a. cartoon
b. ache
c. duty
d. sweat
e. educate
8. Elaborate on the meaning of the lines:
a. Amidst killer speeds I stand
b. Standing erect, as fit as a fiddle.
c. Oh! Look at the weather...such unpredictable days!
a. Who is the speaker in the poem?
b. What do the words 'killer speeds' mean?
c. What is your view of a traffic policeman?
d. Why do his ears hurt?
e. What is 'unpredictable'?
f. What is the attitude of the speaker to the job he does?
4. The poem has three stanzas. What is the rhyme scheme of the stanzas? What are the advantages of using rhyme in a poem?
5. Attempt a 8 or 10 line poem about a policeman standing at a busy intersection in a city or a paragraph or two in prose.
6. Make sentences using the following words:
a. erratic
b. plight
c. agile
d. safety
e. dusty
7. Write down the adjectival form of the following words:
a. cartoon
b. ache
c. duty
d. sweat
e. educate
8. Elaborate on the meaning of the lines:
a. Amidst killer speeds I stand
b. Standing erect, as fit as a fiddle.
c. Oh! Look at the weather...such unpredictable days!
Lesson 4: From Filippos Fylaktos'
Film "My Brother, the Traffic Policeman"
1. Warm up activity:
□ Imagine yourself as a traffic policeman. You have
just finished your shift directing traffic near a school from morning till
noon. Talk to a small group for 5 minutes about your experience.
2. Now read the short passage about the film and
answer the questions that follow:
From Filippos Fylaktos' film "My Brother,
the Traffic Policeman"
The persona of a traffic policeman has always been
a curious one. It has often found important space and close treatment in
literature and other arts. Besides the many poems about this fascinating
character, there is at least one movie where the central character is a traffic
policeman. In 1963, Greek film maker Filippos Fylaktos made this film named My
Brother, the Traffic Policeman. It featured a slightly manic traffic policeman,
Antonis Pikrocholos, who is utterly devoted to service and duty, and applies
the traffic code with unyielding severity. Tickets rain down upon law-breakers
in particular taxi-drivers and especially Lampros, who happens to be in love
with Pikrocholos' sister, Fofo. In his turn, the traffic policeman is in love
with a businessman's daughter, Kiki, who is afraid to reveal her feelings to
her father. Besides, Antonis has given lots of traffic tickets to a bus
belonging to her father's company. For all these reasons, the road to marriage
for both couples is long and strewn with obstacles, but the outcome is a happy
one for everyone involved.
3. Guess the meanings of the following words from
the context:
a. persona
b. curious
c. fascinating
d. manic
e. devoted
f. obstacles
4. Answer the following questions:
a. What does 'giving tickets' mean in the context?
b. What idea of the central character have you
formed?
c. What is meant by 'the road to marriage'?
d. In which language was the movie probably made?
e. How does the movie end?
5. Find the meaning of the word 'manic.' What is
the root word for manic? Describe in 5 sentences how a manic traffic policeman
would behave in real life.
6. Do you think our traffic policemen perform the
following duties? If not, why?
a. apply traffic codes with severity
b. give tickets to all law-breakers
7. The passage suggests that traffic policemen have
found important space in literature. Can you remember reading about a traffic
policeman in any novel, short story or poem?
8. Imagine that you are a taxi driver and have
broken traffic rules on the road. Now write a dialogue between the traffic
policeman in My Brother, the Traffic Policeman and yourself.
9. Go to Google and find out more about the film
and write a 200 words paragraph based on your search. If possible, watch the
film on the You Tube.
Where is the answer???
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